A moment later, the expected bright heat lanced past him, drawing a new line across the afterimages. He ducked his head, dropped the snowshoe pole and grabbed for the staff, fighting to pull it out from under the pack-straps one-handed. The crust crackled under his snowshoes as he shifted, and with a sudden horrid certainty he knew that the mountains cared not for magic and would sweep them away if disturbed too much.
He looked back. Figures were emerging from the col they’d just passed, cloaks and weathercoats parting to show chainmail and plate and the moon-washed red of Crimson Claw tabards. In the middle of that ridgeline gap stood the mage, conjuring defenses of his own against Enkhaelen's next blue-fire blast.
Cob's stomach dropped as he heard Enkhaelen slur a curse and realized that their wards were gone. In the shock, he hadn't noticed the first bite of the frigid air, but it curled through all the gaps in his garments as he shucked his pack, whisking away the warmth and raising the short hairs across his body. The enemy advanced without challenge or demand of surrender, and by the way the mage’s wards drank in Enkhaelen's bright assaults, he knew this was planned. They would make the necromancer exhaust himself, then kill or take him.
“Tirindai,” he rasped through his scarf, trying to bring the staff to bear. Though the wood came alive at his touch, his spirit-hand wasn't strong, his grip limited—until the cursethorn responded, red tendrils filling out his sleeve and coiling around the wood in a semblance of fingers.
He raised the staff against the swordsman bearing down on him, wishing he’d had a chance to practice with it. Two pikemen followed in the man’s wake. The rest—a whole crowd of them—had chosen Enkhaelen as their target; from the corner of his eye he saw the necromancer plunge downslope toward the shelter of the thicker trees, yellow flare-light chasing him.
Crap, he thought.
Then the first man came on, striking for his good hand with a hard overhead chop then following through with a thrust that rasped bark from the staff as it lanced for Cob's neck. Cob had to stumble-step back to evade it, snowshoes making him awkward; the soldiers weren’t wearing any, uplifted instead by spell-light.
His retreat put a modicum of distance between them, letting him shift sidelong and aim the staff forward just as the swordsman struck for him again. The man's hand-and-a-half sword robbed him of much of his reach, but not enough; forcing away the second thrust, he stepped in and rammed the end of the staff into the man’s gorget before he could withdraw.
The man made an unhappy noise, and Cob popped the staff toward his chin, trying to make him back off further. The pikemen were nearly there and he had no illusions that he could take down three at once. It worked—for an instant—but then the sword slipped under his guard and the swordsman went from a sway into a low lunge that jabbed his belly through his gear. If not for the thick leather harness, it might have punctured something. Instead it felt like he'd been kicked.
Then the pikemen were upon him, one from each side, with the swordsman rallying in the middle. He had no choice but to retreat, batting away each pike-thrust desperately as the swordsman kept pace. There was no retaliating, no chance to run—just the inevitability of a misstep and a painful end.
He nearly met it when one heel fetched against an obstacle, botching his retreat and making him tread on his own snowshoe. The accompanying boot, loose to allow for insulating layers, popped right off, and frigid dampness burst through his inner slipper and sock as his foot broke through the crust. An instant later, a pikehead struck for his throat.
Instinct made him topple backward, releasing his thorn-hand's grip on the staff as he crunched through the surface into layers of compacting powder. The pike pursued him, but its wielder wasn’t quick enough to catch him in the drop—not on that try.
As he pulled back to strike again, Cob willed the cursethorn away, then plunged his spirit-fingers down through the snow, into the ice and rock.
Instantly he felt the lay of the land and the heavy instability of the snowcap on the ridge above. Too far, though—so he simply thrust out with his will, forcing the knee-deep snow and broken crust away from himself like throwing off a massive, heavy blanket.
It surged out in a wide wedge, striking his assailants back and down through the torn-up layers as the air filled with fine ice particles. Cob heaved himself upright in its wake, hit a moment of dizziness, and stabilized himself with his staff—then realized his lost boot and snowshoe had flown off with the rush. There was no time to curse; his enemies were already rising. Instead he swung his staff into the side of the swordsman's helmet, dropping him, then rammed the end into the first pikeman's armpit. That man fell away with a yelp.
The other pikeman was halfway up, so Cob kicked him in the head, then gasped as pain shot through his leg. Wet slipper was not made to defeat steel skullcap. The man braced himself and tried again, so this time Cob planted a foot on his shoulder and shoved, then raised the staff one-handed over his abruptly exposed face.
“Stay down,” he growled. “I don't wanna—“
“Hold!” shouted someone downslope. “Surrender, we have your friend!”
Cob shot a look that way and saw the remaining soldiers in a circle around Enkhaelen's fallen form, pikes pinning him to the snow. Cold horror ran through him until he recognized that they'd done so with the pike-ends, not the heads. Through his freezing foot, he still felt the expansive sprawl of ice and piled snow waiting for his pull. He could bury the soldiers, but an avalanche might be the end of Enkhaelen too.
He wouldn't die, said a little voice in the back of his mind, just hibernate as always. Dig him out, toss him in a fire, and he'd be good as new. Can't say the same for these others.
Kill them all.
Sweat broke out on his brow. He'd heard that voice many times, so like his own yet somehow not. But the Guardian was gone, and so was the Dark, and neither the cursethorn nor Lerien could speak now.
So who was it…?
“Put your piking weapon down,” snapped the enemy officer, and he realized he'd zoned out. Seeing no good option, he lowered the staff, then tossed it into the snowpack nearby.
Immediately a hand gripped him by the back of the neck and a heavy boot kicked his left knee from behind. He dropped onto it with a gasp, the remaining snowshoe popping its straps, and put his hand out to catch himself only to have a burst of stars force his head down. The pain came a moment later, his ears ringing so loud he couldn't make out the men's shouts.
One of them twisted his arms back, pushing his face down to the snow. He didn't struggle, just laughed weakly when the man grabbed for his right wrist and found only parka sleeve. It felt weird as it was pulled through his phantom forearm; he could sense residual magic where the wards had been, like thin painless needles being forced through his skin.
“—using a piking staff like this,” was the first he caught as the ringing faded. The one man was trying to tie his empty sleeve around his good arm; when that didn't work, he hiked up the sleeve and tried to clasp a manacle around the stump, but it didn't fit.
“Quit with the shackles, just keep him at sword's-point,” said another. “He'll be in a cell soon enough. Pikes—whose idea was it to jump them? Magus Rale said they were warded...”
“Sergeant. 'Just get them', he said.”
“Piker wants to get back to his beer, there's safer ways. Kina, go get his pack. We need to check it.”
“Yessir,” said a female voice.
More hands gripped him, keeping his arms in place as he was hauled to his feet. He helped as best he could, still dizzy from the blow to the head and starting to feel oddly heavy. There seemed no point in fighting—not until he reached Enkhaelen.
Who was being shackled too, head hanging limply, arms twisted back. They'd pulled his hood and goggles off, and Cob could see the slow, frosted wash of his breath, the closed eyes. The enemy mage had descended from the dip of the col to stand a few cautious feet from him, speaking in an undertone with the burly man who was probably the se
rgeant.
In all, Cob counted ten soldiers—three on him, seven on Enkhaelen—plus the mage and whoever 'Kina' was. As they pushed him forward, he closed his eyes, feeling through his freezing toes for their positions in the snow that surrounded them.
And felt a gap. A thirteenth space with no life inside, just absence—a moving blind spot.
Sliding his gaze that way, he picked out a faint pale outline against the snow, with the suggestion of a shadow behind it. A White Flame, unmoving. His skin prickled. The most recent White Flame he'd seen was Erevard, whom Dasira had flipped into the pit at the Palace. Surely that couldn't be him.
But that unnatural stillness, that sense of flat hostility…
*****
Inside his armor, Erevard boiled with rage. At his ‘comrades’, at Cob, at his blade, but most of all at himself.
Should have gone first. Should have rushed ahead instead of hanging back—just cut their heads off in ambush and pike the question of who they were. No one cares about a few dead travelers, not out here.
But Reivus hadn't reacted—hadn't sensed the mark he'd left in Cob's flesh outside Akarridi, that had led him to his prey in times before. So he'd waited as the sergeant and the mage argued over whether to scry for help or just strike, indifferent to the outcome when it involved strangers.
Now he's caught. Now they'll turn him over and I'll never get to kill him.
Unless I go through them.
It was an attractive thought. He had no doubt that he could kill them all without much effort. The only problem was the bodythief, Kina—bodythieves having an annoying tendency to fade from notice and escape.
Kill the mage first. Let the bodythief run; what does it matter? It's not as if I will return to the outpost. Then kill the soldiers—ah, and the Maker. Yes.
Not what the Field Marshal had asked for, but that man could burn at the stake for all he cared. The red lady's needs came first.
His attention slid to the Maker, evaluating. Supposedly he had been an Archmagus and the Emperor's left hand; now he was little more than baggage slumped in his captors' grip, the faint auroras of ward-magic that had surrounded him gone. No concern.
Leave him chained. That's fine. Take my time with Cob, then finish him.
Too bad Trevere isn’t here. Following stealthily again? Need to keep my eyes open. Get them all, kill them all. Finish this for her.
He took a silent step through the snow toward Magus Rale, meaning to start now.
Then a glow caught his eye. Blue—so deep a tone as to be near-invisible against the night, so faint it was all but transparent on the snow. Blue-black tendrils sliding from the Maker's fingertips, seeking the legs of his captors like snakes.
His hackles went up under his armor. If there was anyone he might not be safe from in here, it was the Maker.
Get Cob first. Now. Before revenge escapes you.
The black blade came easily into his grasp.
*****
A familiar midnight sensation ran across Cob's nerves, and he glanced from the lurking white shape to the captured necromancer. In the low glow of moon- and mage-light, power stretched like blue shadows from Enkhaelen's slumped form, all too familiar. Cob hesitated with a warning on his lips, and saw Paol Cray's face in his memory, stained by that inky light. He pushed the words free. “Watch out—“
Someone cuffed him upside the head, sparking more bright stars. He felt a pike-end press hard between his shoulder-blades. “Keep your mouth shut,” growled his captor, “or you'll be swallowing your teeth. Hoi, sergeant, can we—“
The midnight light unfurled, the men to either side of Enkhaelen snapping rigid as if electrocuted, and Cob closed his eyes. Without the Guardian quailing inside him, he was oddly less frightened this time—or perhaps he was just numb, so that even as the life was sucked out of the first two men, it felt like nothing had changed.
A soft hand of force smacked him bodily, knocking him onto his backside. It hit his captors much harder; he heard breath whuff out and pike-shafts splinter, then the distinct sounds of bodies hitting snowpack several feet back. Someone gave a short wail, more confused than hurt.
Then another man screamed, high and horrid, and Cob looked up to see every soldier down except for the two being vampirized at Enkhaelen's sides—plus one transfixed before him, a shadow-blue shaft through his chest like a lance. It rose at the same angle as the necromancer's stare, Enkhaelen's eyes blazing with its originating light, and as Cob watched, something flared molten orange behind him. He pulled his wrists apart with a crackle of breaking spellwork, the shackles sloughing off as hot slag, then snapped his arms forward to leave blue afterimages hanging in place by his first victims. Grasping the lance, he wrenched himself up by it, then grabbed the stricken man by the throat.
Blue-black radiance flooded outward, painting the world like an underwater nightmare. As the lance-caught man's face collapsed, the other two victims sank to their knees, twitching and foaming, bright energy surging from them into Enkhaelen's spectral arms. All around, the struck-down soldiers were struggling to their feet, but Cob saw Enkhaelen's gaze shoot straight to the mage, saw his fingers crackle with lightning as he raised his hand.
“Sanctuary!” cried the mage, and vanished.
A rasping sound came from Enkhaelen's mouth. If not for his grin, Cob wouldn’t have recognized it as laughter. There was a gleam in his eyes even as he dropped the lance-man, at manic odds with the deadened radiance around him, and as another soldier lunged desperately forward, Cob looked away.
And saw the White Flame bearing down on him.
From that point, he had no question who it was. He didn't need to see the black sword, didn't need to visualize a face behind the blank helm. Only Erevard would come for him with such single-minded fury. Around them, the soldiers were in chaos, shouting orders and oaths; bodies rushed by, heedless of him. He drew his feet under himself and rose, teeth chattering, and brought the staff to his spirit-hand with a yank of snow.
Erevard saluted with his truncated black blade, an unexpected red line kindling along its fuller. Then he surged forward.
Sword hit staff with a solid whack. Through his connection to the living wood, Cob felt the blade’s festering hatred, but no corruption surged out and the staff didn’t split, just lost a divot. His attempt to heave them apart moved himself more than the enemy, but that was fine; his feet came down stable on the exposed ice and he took his distance. As Erevard sliced for him again, he glimpsed two red-stained circles in the broken edge of the sword, like bleeding stumps of bone, and remembered the skeletal forearm and hand that had been revealed by the Emperor’s light. Like Serindas, this blade was the remains of a person.
“Stop!” he shouted as he pushed away again, the impact of his staff setting pale radiance crawling across the White Flame armor. Halved, the black blade was too short to reach him, and the strikes Erevard took at the staff could not cut far enough to split it. Instead, the next time Cob tried to push off from him with it, Erevard grabbed it with his offhand, the white material flowing from his arm to entangle the wood. A yank brought Cob perilously close to blade-range, and he had to lurch back as the blade cut for him.
Rather than fight for the staff, Cob reached down into the ice and wrenched it from the underlying rock with his will. The slab under Erevard broke free, flipping him backward; he struck the ground then immediately rolled aside, pulling the staff with him the whole way. Cob staggered after, barely aborting a reflex kick at Erevard's faceplate that would have put his ankle in reach of the red-streaked blade. With all the snow about, he thought maybe he could pack it around Erevard and just pin him down, but his body already felt heavy from the earlier spirit-work, and Erevard was sturdy, vicious. Miss and he’d be dead.
The cursethorn prickled along his phantom arm, willing to assist, but he couldn't spare the attention to direct it. Instead, he kept hold of the far end of the staff as Erevard rose, and snapped, “Festering blight, we don't have to do this!”
>
Erevard stabbed for him anyway, and it took all his twisting and pushing and lurching to stay away. The whiteness crept onward, now near halfway up the staff.
“I'm sorry about Jas!” he shouted. Beyond them, midnight energies roiled and lashed among the trees; even when he dared look, he saw only a blue blotch, the colors too deep for detail. “He was a friend, and I failed him, but he wouldn't want either of us t’ die! You know that!”
Erevard halted, and for a moment Cob thought he'd gotten through. Then the white threads tore from the staff and he lunged full-force, the red-tipped blade driving straight for Cob's face. Cob managed to pitch himself aside, but not enough; the edge caught him under the left eye and sliced back, parting flesh and ear and scalp before he fell free.
Black agony blinded him. Panicked, he hit the snow and started scrambling backward, losing the staff in the process. Though he could sense stone and ice and winter-killed roots through his spirit-hand and heel, Erevard was still an absence, no more tangible than the moonlight or the wind.
“What can I do?” he rasped desperately to that emptiness, the pain flaring in his face with every motion. “Words mean nothin'—I know—but this won't fix it either! Jas wouldn't want this!”
Silence. He cringed, bereft of his senses, unsure if he could shift the ice again. That last attempt was just hitting home for him, the heaviness now in his shoulders and arms and dragging at his head. Fallen down, he didn't know if he could get back up.
Then came a low sound like tearing fabric, and Erevard's rusty, husky voice. “You didn't know him.”
Cob lowered his defensive arm slightly. Darkness still swarmed his vision, but he guessed Erevard to be just a few feet away, past his outstretched legs. “I knew what he showed me,” he answered. “He was always decent, even when I was bein' a dick. Never pushed, was jus' there to help if someone asked for it. If I could've stopped it from happenin', I would've.”
The Drowning Dark (The War of Memory Cycle Book 4) Page 61
